Johan Frid / Group VII, Oct 98 - Mar 99

FINAL PROJECTS

3/19/99 to 3/21/99

MAK Center at the Mackey Apartments, 1137 - 1141 South Cochran Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

Swedish artists Åse Frid and Johan Frid were highly influenced by the stories of Swedish children's book author Astrid Lindgren when they began work on issues in which the "real imagination" and the saga got stuck in a "point of no return" in the fast-paced urban life. During their stay in Los Angeles, however, the constant feeling of "luxury, anxiety, and sexual nervousness," as they lived together in a Schindler-designed house, altered their views. They based their installation on a "fine, old-fashioned motto" hidden in obscurity as a result of "shrinkage of the room." But traces of the motto showed in their work in both their efforts to "integrate everything" under "forms of organized freedom" and in how they dealt internally with the problems or questions brought forth by this motto.